really tho a lot of fitness culture is an intersection of the worst of late capitalist “masculinity”: pseudo-intellectualism, paranoia, objectification of the body, deference to authority rather than intuition or internal cues, intolerance of illness or weakness (universal human experiences), xtreme self-monitoring, delusions of grandeur, and on and on. it creates a front for pushing and falsely advertising useless products based on those elements, as well as (u know i can’t not say it!) operating as a means of social control
Twenty-First Century Victorians
Current exercise trends, like hot yoga, spin, and CrossFit, all
demonstrate a commitment to self-denial and self-discipline, values much
praised by the Victorians. Marathon running has become the ultimate
signifier: competitors can post photos on social media to prove to everyone that they have tortured their bodies in a highly virtuous — and not at all kinky — fashion.
This seeps over into everyday activities as well. Trader Joe’s and
Whole Foods are filled with people dressed in workout gear with no sweat
in sight. This clothing marks its wearers as the type of people who
care for their bodies, even when they aren’t exercising. Yoga pants and
running shoes display virtue just as clearly as the nineteenth-century wives’ corseted dresses did.
Being fit now indexes class, saturating both fitness and food
culture. As calories have become cheaper, obesity has changed from being
a sign of wealth to a sign of moral failure. Today, being unhealthy
functions as a hallmark of the poor’s cupidity the same way
working-class sexual mores were viewed in the nineteenth century.
Both lines of thinking assert that the lower classes cannot control
themselves, so they deserve exactly what they have and nothing more. No
need, then, for higher wages or subsidized health care. After all, the poor will just waste it on cigarettes and cheeseburgers.
My brain, at 6 AM on a Monday: I wonder if you can order those little soy sauce fish shaped bottles in bulk, except without soy sauce in them. You should spend 30 minutes trying to find them instead of sleeping.
Must… resist…
Cons: Waste of money, waste of time, stupid, pointless, unnecessary, foolish.
jk rowling and notch are both members of my case study “does being richer than god turn you into a fucking moron” and it turns out the answer is a hard yes
it rules that i can tell jkr did something dumb as shit because this gets another surge of notes
The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to send Kavanaugh to the full Senate for a vote. They did so in spite of Dr. Ford’s testimony; and at virtually every turn, Republicans pretended as if Kavanaugh was not an abuser, but was instead the real victim.
I wrote an article for USA Today about this faux victimization, paying particular attention to the ways in which Kavanaugh’s supporters compared his rocky confirmation hearings to lynchings, conflating a rich white man’s inconvenience with racist injustice.
Women, people of color, and survivors of any race and gender deserve so much better.
i was playing pokemon blue on stream earlier at 350% speed and i got to thinking
what if the reason nobody in the pokemon world has any good teams is because its considered a dick move to have a proper team comp
like culturally everyone is like “haha pick the pokemon you want! if you’re happy with three geodudes, thats you and your life!” and then you’re supposed to just have a friendly battle with any other pokemon trainers and whatever pokemon they just happen to have
like the average trainer is probably just walking around with a growlithe because that’s their pet, or a hiker has three geodudes because the geodudes help him with hiking. and if this pet owner and geodude hiker meet, you’re supposed to have a friendly battle but nothing too serious
now imagine the 10 year old kid that has six pokeballs on their belt comes up. you’re like “haha, we’ll have a friendly battle!” and you throw out your geodude
and they throw out a fucking gyarados, and it one-shots your geodude
and then you throw out your pidgey you have because the pidgey helps you navigate mountains because you’re a hiker
and then electricity crackles around the gyarados and a thunderbolt flies off of this giant dragon and evaporates your pidgey
so you’re down to your last pokemon. you tell them you’re gonna send out your bulbasaur. the ten year old is like “oh okay in that case i’m gonna pull out my vulpix.” like not only is this kid walking around with an amped-up super dragon, but theyve also got multiple pokemon specifically for making type advantage counter-picks?
this kid’s a fucking asshole! really, kid? what are you trying to prove here? this is a friendly match between strangers for fun! why are you composing real-ass competitive teams? what a fucker!
To be fair, if random strangers kept running up to me and start fighting me just because I looked at them or something, with no way to turn down the “friendly match”, I’d go and make the most competitive team that has ever beaten their asses for being rude like that. And that’s essentially the plot of the games, isn’t it?
Overdressed & Underappreciated 